A/B testing is a fantastic method for figuring out the best online promotional and marketing strategies for your business. It can be used to test everything from website copy to sales emails to search ads. While it can be time-consuming, the advantages of A/B testing are enough to offset the additional time it takes. Well-planned …
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A/B testing is a fantastic method for figuring out the best online promotional and marketing strategies for your business. It can be used to test everything from website copy to sales emails to search ads. While it can be time-consuming, the advantages of A/B testing are enough to offset the additional time it takes.
Well-planned tests can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Narrowing down the most effective elements of a promotion and then combining them, can create a far more effective marketing plan.
A/B testing is a marketing strategy that pits two different versions of a website, ad, email, popup, or landing page against each other to see which is most effective.
For example, you might test two different popups to see which drives more webinar sign-ups or two different Google Ads to see which drives more purchases.
On my own site, I spent time A/B testing my popup to find out what encouraged users to engage with my brand.
Over time, we found offering a free website analysis (which provides tons of value) was the most effective way to establish expertise and show visitors the value we offer.
Accurate A/B tests can make a huge difference to your bottom line. By using controlled tests and gathering empirical data, you can figure out exactly which marketing strategies work best for your company and your product.
When you figure that one variation might work two, three, or even four times better than another, the idea that you would run promotions without testing starts to seem a bit ludicrous.
When done consistentyly, testing can improve your bottom line substantially. If you know what works and what doesn’t (and have evidence to back it up) it’s easier to make decisions and craft more effective marketing strategies.
Here are a few other benefits to running regular tests on your website and marketing materials:
The first thing to do when planning an A/B test is to figure out what you want to test. Are you running an on-site test, or an off-site test? If you’re running an on-site test, you’ll want to think of all the sales-related pieces of your website, and then figure out which elements to test.
For example, you might test:
With off-site tests, you’re probably testing either an ad or a sales email. Testing ad copy to see which ad drives more conversions can help you focus your advertising efforts. Once you know your ad is converting as well as possible, it’s easier to justify spending more money on it.
The same goes for emails. If you send out two versions to your list (randomly selecting which half gets which email), and then track which one converts better, you can send only that version the next time.
Once you know what you’ll test, make a list of all the variables you’ll test. For example, if you’ve decided to test your call to action, you might test:
It’s a process, and it’s common for multiple A/B tests to be carried out prior to making a final decision or final change.
Before you start testing, make sure you have a clear idea of the results you’re looking for. You should already know your baseline result, which is the results you’re currently getting. You want to test option A and B against each other, but you also want to know that whichever one does better in the test is also doing better than your current results.
Alternatively, you can use A as your control (leaving whatever you’re currently using) and then use something new for B.
Tests need to be run simultaneously to account for any variations in timing. You can’t test one variation today and the other one tomorrow, because you can’t factor in any variables that might have changed between today and tomorrow. Instead, you need to split the traffic seeing your variations at the same time.
Here’s an A/B testing checklist to review before running your first test:
You can test virtually anything in your marketing materials or on your website: headlines, calls to action, body copy, images, etc. If you can change it, you can test it.
That doesn’t mean you should spend months testing every little thing. Instead, focus on changes most likely to have a big impact on traffic and conversions.
On your website, this likely includes:
In an email, you might test the title, images, links, CTAs, or segmenting options. In a paid ad, especially a text ad (like a search ad), you have fewer things to change, and so you might test the main headline, the offer, or targeting.
Testing different offers is also important. Just make sure that each person is always offered the same promotion. For example, if a free gift is offered to group A, and a discount is offered to group B, then you want to make sure that group A always contains the same visitors, as does group B.
You can also test the full path of conversion. For example, you might test newsletter A with landing page A, and newsletter B with landing page B. Later, you may want to test newsletter A with landing page B, and vice versa.
This can give you a better idea of what is working, especially if you’re getting mixed results or if the results are very close. Here are a few other tests you can run.
A/B testing is not an overnight project. Depending on the amount of traffic you get, you might want to run tests for anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Remember, you only want to run one test at a time for the most accurate results.
Running a test for an insufficient amount of time can skew the results, as you don’t get a large enough group of visitors to be statistically accurate. Running a test for too long can also give skewed results, though, since there are more variables you can’t control over a longer period.
Make sure that you stay abreast of anything that might affect your test results, so that you can account for statistical anomalies in your results. When in doubt, run the test again.
Considering the impact A/B testing can have on your bottom line, it’s worth taking a few weeks to properly conduct tests. Test one variable at a time, and give each test sufficient time to run.
There are two approaches to this question. Say you just want to test your headline, but you have three possible variations. In that case, running a single test and splitting your visitors (or recipients in the case of an email) into three groups instead of two is reasonable, and would likely still be considered an A/B test.
This is more efficient than running three separate tests (A vs. B, B vs. C, and A vs. C). You may want to give your test an extra couple of days to run, so you have enough results to see what actually works.
Testing more than one thing at a time, such as headlines and calls to action, is called a multi-variate test, and is more complicated to run. There are plenty of resources out there for multi-variate testing, but we won’t be covering that when talking about A/B testing.
A/B testing is a marketing strategy that pits two different versions of a website, ad, email, popup, or landing page against each other to see which is most effective. It’s one of the most effective ways to increase conversion rates.
Decide what to test, create two versions, decide on how long to run the test, choose a tool, then see what works!
Any part of a paid ad, website, or marketing material including (but not limited to) pop-ups, emails, landing pages, and featured images.
Most tests should be run for at least two weeks, but A/B testing should be continual.
Yes, in some cases. In general, it is best to stick to two versions of the same asset.
Google’s Optimize is a free, powerful A/B testing tool. Your email platform, landing page tools, or website plugins may also offer this feature. For paid tools, consider Optimizely.
A/B testing is a marketer’s best friend. It allows you to see, for example, what ads drive the most conversions, what offers your audience responds to, or what blog headlines drive the most traffic.
There are a variety of tools you can use to get started, including Google Optimize (which is free!) and Optimizely.
If you’re looking to get started with A/B testing, you can start by learning how to a/b test in Google Analytics.
Are you considering trying A/B testing? What is holding you back?
Did you know there are more than 30 million small businesses in the United States alone?
With a number like this, small business owners need a competitive edge. If you are building a business, chances are you’re looking for ways to get your leg up on the competition. To accomplish this, you’ll need a good marketing strategy and access to the best digital marketing tools.
In this post, I’m going to outline 21 digital marketing tools you need when starting a business. You may be familiar with a marketing tool or two in here; others might be new to you.
From simplifying your social media marketing efforts and project management to finding freelancers, each of these tools will help you get the competitive edge you’re after.
Are you ready to grow your business with digital marketing?
Then let’s begin.
Get this: email marketing is used by eight out of ten marketers.
This isn’t something you should wait on. Instead, you should implement an email marketing strategy on day one.
With more than 12 million customers, MailChimp has claimed its spot as one of the top email marketing providers and digital marketing tools in the world.
While there are alternatives, this tool remains one of the best, for many reasons:
When starting a business, it’s not likely that you will have more than 2,000 subscribers. For this reason, you can get started with MailChimp early using the tool for free as you get your feet wet with email marketing and then move to a paid plan as you scale.
When it comes to marketing, sales, and CRM software, HubSpot has become one of the top players.
For the sake of this post, let’s focus on its marketing software solutions. The company has this to say about this digital marketing tool:
From attracting visitors to closing customers, HubSpot brings your entire marketing funnel together.
You know just how important it is for your marketing funnel to be in good working order. With this software, you have access to tools that help with:
There is no stone left unturned, when you rely on HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing software.That’s why it’s a top choice for those who are starting a business.
With everything you need in one place, you don’t have to pull yourself in many different directions. This will help you to find success in the early days and help you as you grow.
Trello is a digital marketing tool that helps you to manage projects and stay on the same page as your team–a sound digital marketing practice if you want to save time and frustration.
For example, you can share blog posts on Trello before you publish them. This gives others on your team the opportunity to review the post, weigh in with their thoughts and make changes that could strengthen the piece before it goes live.
In the past, before the days of Trello and similar programs, email was the best way to collaborate with your team. While this is still helpful, to a certain degree, it can lead to confusion, missed messages, and frustration.
With Trello, everything related to your online marketing strategy can be shared in the same place. It only takes a few minutes to set up a board. Even better, you can quickly invite your entire staff, all of whom can jump in on the action without delay.
Trello isn’t the only digital marketing tool of its kind, but it’s, by far, one of the best. When it comes to collaborating with others regarding marketing tasks, this tool is hard to beat.
Social media plays a big part in the success of any company, regardless of size, age, or industry. In fact, I’d argue that social media marketing is a must to thrive in this digital era.
Digital marketing tools like Hootsuite allow you to schedule social media posts in advance, thus saving you loads of time.
Hootsuite offers tons of features to help you grow your business. For example, you can:
Social media marketing is not as difficult as it sounds, especially when you rely on tools like Hootsuite. With this particular tool, you can schedule and manage social media profiles for more than 30 platforms.
Imagine doing this by hand, without a central dashboard to guide you. It would be enough to frustrate even the most experienced entrepreneur, let alone a new business owner. Let Hootsuite take over like the social media marketing manager it is.
As one of the top free tools from Google, Analytics should be part of your digital marketing strategy from the very start. In fact, I’d argue it’s one of the most powerful digital marketing tools out there.
It only takes a couple of minutes to add the Analytics code to your website, giving you the ability to track every action by every visitor.
This is considered by many to be nothing more than a traffic tool, but it can actually have a big impact on your marketing strategy, if you know what you’re doing.
Take, for example, the ability to see where your traffic comes from:
Maybe you realize that a particular social media campaign is driving tons of traffic to your website. With this data, you can adjust your future strategy, in an attempt to capture the same results.
Or, maybe you find that a particular set of keywords is doing wonders for your organic traffic. Again, you can turn your attention to these keywords, ensuring that you keep these in mind as you create content down the road.
Google Analytics isn’t one of those digital marketing tools you can ignore. Installing this early on is a key decision, in regards to your digital marketing strategy. The data you can collect is extremely valuable.
The tagline of this digital marketing tool says it all:
Track, analyze and optimize your digital marketing performance. See what’s working and what’s not, across all campaigns, mobile and web.
It’s good that you want to spend so much time on digital marketing in the early days of your business. But, do you really want to make decisions that aren’t having an impact?
You need to track and analyze every move that you make, as this is the only way to focus on the tactics that are providing the best return on investment (ROI).
With KISSmetrics, you can easily see what’s working and what’s not, across all of your campaigns.
Take, for example, its Analytics products. With a funnel report, you can see if there are any “leaks” in your business. Here’s a screenshot of what to expect:
Starting at $120/month, KISSmetrics isn’t the cheapest digital marketing tool on this list. Even so, it’s one that you’ll want to think about, as your business gets up and running.
With a variety of products at your fingertips, the insights you receive will be invaluable to your company’s growth.
Do you plan on spending a lot of time on social media marketing?
While this is a great way to engage your audience and send traffic to your website, it’ll only work in your favor if you have a solid plan in place.
Tools, such as Followerwonk, are designed to help you improve your social media marketing strategy, such as by digging into your Twitter analytics data.
I included this digital marketing tool on the list for two reasons: it’s easy to use and it’s extremely effective.
Followerwonk breaks down its service into three distinct categories:
The only downside of Followerwonk is that it can’t be used with other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. However, if you have big plans for Twitter, this is a digital marketing tool you should use often.
Even though you may not use it on a daily basis, it can come in handy from time to time. After all, it’s imperative that you understand your audience.
If WordPress is your content management system (CMS) of choice, you shouldn’t hesitate to install the All in One SEO Pack plugin.
A big part of your digital marketing strategy should be based around search engine optimization (SEO) and this digital marketing tool will ensure that you always make good decisions regarding your content and its appeal to search engines.
Some of the top features of the plugin include:
Even though all of these features are exciting, it’s something else that has made it one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time: its ease of use.
Here’s a screenshot, showing a small portion of the tool’s back end:
You don’t have to make many decisions in order to get started. And, if you’re ever confused as to what you should be doing, there is help to be had. All you have to do is click the “?” symbol and you’re provided with more information and advice.
The All in One SEO Pack plugin has more than a million active installs. You won’t have to look far to find competitors, but there’s a reason why so many people use this digital marketing tool.
Not only is it free and simple, but it’s results can’t be denied. It will definitely help your website from an SEO perspective, which is something all new businesses need.
BuzzSumo is a big deal for people who need to learn more about their market.
When you start a business, it’s safe to say you know a thing or two about your industry and primary competitors. But, once you dig around more, you’ll find that there is tons of data you can use to your advantage.
If you want to better understand your competition or if you want to learn what type of content performs best with search engines and your audience, you don’t need any other digital marketing tool by your side.
A BuzzSumo search results page looks something like this:
Additionally, there is high level data associated with each result:
This information can come in handy at many times, such as when you are creating content for your blog.
Why guess as to what is performing best in your niche? You can use BuzzSumo to answer this question with 100 percent accuracy.
With this search, you see that the top result has approximately 20k social shares. You now know what to strive for, if you want to achieve the same level of success.
As a big fan of BuzzSumo, this is a ditial marketing tool that I use on a regular basis. Even if you don’t do much with the data at first, each search will help you to better understand your competition and target audience.
Do you ever find yourself asking this question: what’s working and what’s not about my website?
This is where Crazy Egg can step in and provide assistance.
There are two keys here:
When you’re new to your business, you don’t want to spend countless hours dealing with IT issues. Unfortunately, this often happens when it comes to split testing. Unless you use Crazy Egg, of course.
The tool is packed with features, such as:
A tool that helps you understand what your website visitors like and don’t like, so you can maximize your sales and leads, means that you have to give Crazy Egg a try. It’s one of those digital marketing tools that you don’t know you need, until you use it one time.
Not only is keyword research a challenging task, but it can also get expensive with the price of premium keyword research tools. Your typical free software won’t offer you much but UberSuggest isn’t your typical free software.
As a whole, this digital marketing tool is easy for beginners because the dashboard is simple to navigate so you can quickly find the data you want. You’ll start by entering a root keyword or domain that you want to research. You get up to three free searches per day on the free version and you can upgrade to a paid software as well.
UberSuggest provides useful keyword information such as total search volume, difficulty, and paid difficulty if you’re thinking of running an ad campaign around that keyword.
As you work your way down you’ll see historical data that will show you how that keyword has trended over time. This is helpful for determining seasonal keywords or ones that are popular now but may die off over time.
You also get keyword ideas and suggestions that are relevant to the one you’re searching for so you can update older content or develop a content marketing plan.
Overall, UberSuggest is an amazing free keyword research tool that is a great choice for beginners and has enough value as a paid tool for those who are scaling as well.
CoFoundersLab is a great digital marketing tool for small businesses that are growing but need a little help to take things to the next level. It uses AI to help you find a cofounder, additional member, or advisor based on a certain set of criteria.
The best digital marketing tools make life easier. CoFoundersLab intends on helping to create a large ecosystem of business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants, and advisors so it’s that much easier to find whatever you need at the current stage in your business.
For example, you can search for someone with a specific skill and find them instantly without having to post on job boards, conduct interviews, and do onboarding. If you’re looking for an SEO content creator, you’ll simply fill out that set of criteria and be instantly connected to someone who can fill that role.
It’s similar to other freelancing platforms out there, but what separates CoFoundersLab is you can find someone who is on the same level. If you’re looking for someone to financially back your business or simply support you equally in your venture, this might be the place to do it.
When it comes to must-have digital marketing tools, Adobe Sign more than makes the cut. It’s a cloud-based e-signature service that helps you use less paper, save time, and get signatures using an automated signature system. You can send documents, sign, and manage the whole process via desktop or mobile device.
There are also integrations to keep records of all the signatures you’ve received so you can reference back if you lose something important.
This simple but useful tool solves a major problem that a lot of businesses have. More and more people are working remotely and may not have access to printers and scanners. This creates delays in your workflow and can frustrate customers if you’re unable to get them what they want because you’re waiting on signatures and approvals.
Adobe Sign is also usable from anywhere on any device. Someone can be on their way to a meeting in the car and sign on their mobile device using their fingertip. No need to print anything, scan, fax, anything. It’s completely digital, safe, and secure.
DropBox is an essential piece of the modern digital business. It allows all the working pieces of your business to come together in one place to eliminate clutter and save time looking for things.
Organization is the key to a successful business, and downloading and sharing files simply doesn’t cut it anymore. With people working from home, you can’t have everyone downloading personal company files onto their computers, misplacing them, or potentially abusing them.
DropBox prevents this from happening by being a totally cloud-based document sharing platform that allows you to set permission levels so certain people can only see what they need to.
You can also connect other tools like Slack and Zoom to DropBox so you have everything in one place. All company data stays in one place so it’s organized, safe, and accounted for.
If you’re still manually downloading files to your computer, attaching them to emails, and sending them off into space, you’ll find DropBox is a much more efficient and safer way to keep track of documents and document sharing in your business.
I don’t know where I would be without the full line of Gmail products. There used to be a time when we’d create pieces of content in Word platform, download it, and then attach it to an email and send it off.
The next person would mark it up with notes and adjustments, send it back, and the process would start over.
Thankfully, those days are long gone.
With Google Docs and Sheets, you can share documents in real-time and actually mark them up with the writer looking at them so you can see what they’re doing. There’s a chat feature and a suggestion area, too where you can ask questions and provide responses as to why a certain adjustment was made.
There’s a level of security and protection here, as well. Different permission levels ranging from “view” to “edit” give you complete control over your documents. If you’re sending a document off as a reference to something, you might not want that person to make any changes to it without making a copy for themselves, the Gmail Suite of products can do that.
Plus, everything syncs with your Google Calendar. If you’re talking in an email about setting up a call in three days, you can instantly set that appointment on your calendar and you’ll receive reminders across all your devices.
oDeskWork is a freelancer platform that connects you with the right virtual assistant or freelancer to support your business. At some point, every business needs to start hiring. No matter what business you’re in, to grow and scale, you need a support system because you can’t do everything.
This is where digital marketing tools like oDeskWork come into play. You can upload current projects that you need completed, browse profiles, and start communicating with potential candidates.
The platform also offers payment protection, so you ensure you get the services you anticipated. Payments are only released to the freelancer when you’re satisfied with the work they completed.
oDeskWork has experts and freelancers in all different kinds of niches including digital marketing, virtual assisting, transcribing, proofreading, writing, editing, SEO, WordPress, and more.
Upwork is a freelancer platform that connects you with qualified candidates who can help your business grow, making it a must-have digital marketing tool. What I like most about Upwork is the transparency you get and the fact that you can see all types of work that the freelancers have completed.
For example, if you’re browsing for someone to build you a WordPress website, you wouldn’t hire someone without first seeing what type of work they do, right?
The platform will show you examples of their work, their job success rating, a description of their skills, their rate per hour, as well as any badges they’ve earned for continuous performance.
When you’re searching for tools for digital marketing agencies, the last thing you need is to waste time with people who can’t deliver. Upwork ensures that doesn’t happen with their escrow protection as well. None of the money you pay for a job will be released until you are happy with it.
I also find that Upwork is a great place to find long-term working relationships with freelancers that you can use on an ongoing basis versus a one-off job.
I like to think of Fiverr as Upwork’s little brother. When you’re looking to create long-term working relationships and hire someone who can really provide you with a premium service, you should turn to Upwork.
Sometimes though, you’re just looking for a quick job that someone can turn around fast for an affordable price. For example, if you need someone to do up a quick logo for an affiliate site for five dollars, Fiverr is the way to go.
One thing I really like about Fiverr is you can quickly sift through freelancers using the search feature. Type in the service you’re interested in, and you’ll find information such as overall rating and average starting cost.
Fiverr also provides certain freelancers with titles like “top-rated seller” and “level 2 seller.” These will help you determine what level of experience you’re looking for in the job you need to be completed. The best digital marketing tools offer this kind of trust.
This tool is best for one-off jobs that are lower budget and not as difficult, but I wouldn’t recommend hiring off Fiverr for anything too involved such as link building or content creation.
Need to stay on task? This digital marketing tool can help.
OmniFocus is a task management tool that helps you manage all your operations in one place. You can keep track of everything that’s going on all from your browser or mobile device.
You can tag certain projects, assign them to the individual you want to complete them, and set due dates so you can lay out your week in the most productive way possible. As work comes in, you can assign support workers to handle the task and close it out when it’s complete.
One of my favorite things about OmniFocus is the forecast feature where you can get an overall snapshot of what you have coming up in the future including recurring tasks that might only happen once per quarter, bi-annually, or even every few years. This ensures that no one forgets anything.
The main downside is that this tool is only available for Apple users at this point. For all the Windows and Android people out there, you’ll have to go with something else like Trello or ClickUp for now.
We all know Zoom as the video conferencing software used to bring people together no matter where they are on the planet. We’re all facing our own unique remote working situation but we still need to connect sometimes and Zoom allows that to happen. The best digital marketing tools help bring businesses together.
You can share your screen, draw on the screen, record meetings, and invite others to join in as well. Zoom offers free video conferencing for up to 100 participants for up to 40 minutes.
If you’re holding a one-on-one meeting that runs longer than 40 minutes, I’ve found in the past that Zoom will often extend the meeting for free with no time limit.
Toggl helps bring this list of digital marketing tools together. For all the work you’re doing, freelancers you’re managing, and documents you’re sharing; you need to have an idea of how long everything takes.
This tool does that with time tracking, reporting, and project planning. You can use Toggl to get an accurate representation of how long a task or project will take so you can know how many resources you need to allot for next time.
Toggl offers a few different tools for time tracking, project planning, and candidate-screening so it’s an all-inclusive tool for businesses that manage a remote team.
Starting or growing a business isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming, either.
The first step is to create a strong digital marketing strategy–one that incorporates social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, and consistent, valuable content that truly speaks to your audience.
Ensuring your business succeeds means using the right digital marketing tools at the right time. It’s my hope that this list will help you in your digital marketing efforts and bring you the success you seek.
Would you add any other tools to this list? Did you use any of these as you launched your small business? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Social media is often your customer’s top choice to try and solve any issues they are experiencing with your site or your product. This brings up a few challenges for big and small businesses: Customers …
The post Top 5 Tools for Customer Care in Social Media appeared first on Paper.li blog.
With more than 3.6 billion social media users worldwide, social media marketing cannot be ignored.
Savvy marketers know social media is a vital part of every marketing campaign. For businesses, every social media platform is an opportunity to engage with their target audience.
Even marketing stars know that strategizing and managing even a few social networks can be overwhelming without the right management social media tools in place.
Consider this:
How can you keep up with your Twitter account when you haven’t even checked Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok today? What about all those new social media sites that are popping up every other day (or so it seems)?
How do you know which ones to target for your brand and which to skip?
Take a deep breath.
Managing your social media shouldn’t be overwhelming. Social media tools can help:
I’ve done the research for you and organized the top social media marketing into five categories. We start with tools that help with the four stages of social media marketing: discovery, creation, monitoring and scheduling, and analyzing. Then, I added a fifth miscellaneous category at the end.
If you find yourself stuck in a particular stage, just head down to the relevant section.
Are you ready to get productive, optimize your social media marketing, and become an expert social media marketer?
Let’s begin.
According to Statista, users post 347,222 stories to Instagram, and 157,000 share messages on Facebook every minute. It can be overwhelming to find value-added content in all that noise.
Let’s look at content curation social media tools that help filter meaningful content so you can find images, posts, and conversations that will resonate with your audience.
This tool organizes stories shared by friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook, and other social apps. It’s available as a web, Android, and iOS app.
It displays aggregated stories from your social media circle as easy-to-read links in a feed. You can also add influencers in your niche.
You can catch up on news from the last hour, or go through the past week using the “Sort By” option. You can tap into content shared by your second-degree connections, as well.
Finally, you can also curate content from your newsfeed into an email newsletter.
Feedly aggregates the top content in your niche from industry blogs and other publications. Their AI bot, Leo, acts as a research assistant that learns your reading habits and delivers articles you’ll be interested in.
It then “reads” each article and annotates them with relevant summaries, analyses, and links to relevant content.
Leo learns from your behavior. If you save an article, it will show you more like it. If you click “less like this,” Leo will remember and show you fewer articles on that topic.
You can also set up priorities within topics. Choose a sub-topic, and Leo will include those articles under a Priorities tab.
There are several reasons I love this tool. On top of content discovery, you can use it to research keywords, track online trends, and even find influencers within your vertical.
Use it to dissect your competition, understand your audience, and find content with the most social network shares.
The Chrome extension lets you do your research while you browse, as well. To use it, enter your keyword or phrase to discover the top-performing content.
You can use the filters to customize your search by language, time frame, country, and a number of other parameters.
You can find the popularity of content on a particular social network by using the “sort by” feature.
You can also plug a blog URL into the tool to find its top-performing content pieces.
This is another great social media tool for monitoring and searching for hashtags relevant to your industry and track brand mentions.
To start your search, plug in the keyword, and the tool delivers content from several platforms.
Here are search results for #neilpatel:
You can directly respond to these mentions, right from the screenshot page.
On the right sidebar, you get useful stats around the frequency and sentiment of your hashtag.
Tagboard is especially useful to track conversations and engagement during conferences and live events.
According to Venngage, 49 percent of surveyed marketers rated visual content as very important, but 43 percent said producing it consistently was their biggest challenge.
Social media has become undeniably visual, and having a presence on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and other visual platforms is paramount.
Here are a couple of social media tools to help you create videos, images, diagrams, Pinterest boards, infographics, and more.
This is a simple graphic design web tool with pre-made templates for all kinds of social networks and uses.
It combines some of the best elements of Photoshop with a drag-and-drop functionality.
For every template, there are a variety of layouts, fonts, and backgrounds to choose from. And if you find yourself having trouble with a particular functionality, there are free tutorials to help you design better graphics.
For example, if you’re considering repurposing your most shared content for an infographic, there’s a tutorial for creating simple infographics with Canva.
Here are ten websites to source free and premium stock photos you can use in your designs.
Biteable allows you to create videos, animations, motion graphics, and a number of other visuals for social, ads, and even presentations. You can use any of their templates to get started.
You can sync your marketing calendar with theirs to get tips and ready-to-go video templates for relevant seasons, holidays, and events.
Pixlr is a freemium service with a lot of the functionality of Photoshop.
Its free services include Pixlr X (for express) with essential tools for quick editing. Pixlr E (for editor) offers a more extensive selection of tools for more sophisticated content creation and Remove BG, an AI-based background removal tool.
If you need even more photo editing capabilities, they offer a subscription-based plan that includes more stickers, overlays, and visual effects, as well.
Pixlr offers templates, as well, some free and some part of the subscription service.
The images you share on Pinterest should be vertically aligned. But, if you insert a tall image directly into a blog post, it’ll take up a lot of real estate.
The solution is uploading the tall Pinterest image below the first picture of your post. Then, change its height and width to one pixel each.
Now, the image will appear when you click on the “Pin it” button to share on Pinterest. The alt text of the Pinterest image automatically serves as the caption for the image.
It’s impossible to manage your brand’s social media accounts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But the world of social media doesn’t turn off at 5 p.m.
Social media tools for monitoring and scheduling can help. They can save you hours every week by combining your brand activity from multiple social media networks into one dashboard.
Hoot is a full-service social media management tool that lets you track mentions, engagement, and other metrics across all of your social platforms. You can schedule and track posts using their analytics tools and respond to mentions via your dashboard.
This is an amazing app to schedule updates from your social network accounts at the times that you work best for your brand.
It works a lot like Hootsuite. You can create and schedule social posts, and then track them through their analytics.
Buffer will also prioritize social mentions for you, so you can respond to the most pressing ones first.
Hopper HQ connects your brand with top content creators in your vertical. Once you choose from a list of recommended creators, they deliver content you can share in posts and paid ads.
CoSchedule is a simple, integrated social media and blog publishing calendar.
It also includes a suite of organizing tools for social media, brand assets, work, and content. Schedule your blog posts, collaborate with different authors on a post, and assign specific tasks to different people.
It has an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop interface, as well.
In the calendar view itself, you can also keep track of the most shared and engaged with content.
If This Then That is a fantastic social media tool to connect applications and automate social actions. IFTTT offers a series of applets that allow you to connect platforms and streamline your work.
For example, you can send your Instagrams to Twitter as native tweets. You can also get a weekly notification email of all of the people who followed you on Twitter. You can also archive tweets to a Google spreadsheet.
You can create your own applet from scratch by choosing a trigger and appending an action to it.
Or, you can use applets created by other people.
In this article, Kristi Hines explains a killer recipe to directly schedule social media updates from your Feedly account.
You can schedule the articles you choose to read later in Feedly on your social network accounts through Buffer. You only need Gmail and Buffer accounts to set up this applet.
The best way to find the most effective social network for your business is by tracking your social media marketing efforts.
The right data allows you to calculate ROI from your social media marketing campaigns. It’ll help you find your top-performing content, so you can tweak your campaign and optimize your marketing efforts.
Let’s look at a few social media tools to measure and analyze your social activities.
Google Analytics is one of the most widely used analytics tools to track user behavior on websites. But, you can also track social reports under its reporting tab.
To access your social network standing, log into your Analytics account. Then, head over to the Reporting tab. Click on Acquisition > Social.
Set up goals inside Analytics to access these social reports. There are standard templates inside analytics you can use to set actionable goals for your social media marketing campaigns.
If you get stuck, use Google’s official step-by-step guide for setting goals.
There are eight reports you can see under social analytics–Overview, Network Referral, Data Hub Activity, Landing Pages, Trackbacks, Conversions, Plugins, and Visitors Flow.
Once you set up goals, you’ll be able to see your social media impact in Overview.
The most important report is conversions.
You can break down your social media campaign by network and find out the most successful platform.
If you’re interested in the user behavior–the like and share buttons your visitors are clicking–you’ll need to set up social plugins.
Although setting up this report might take time, the end results are worth the effort:
A clear picture of the social network that provides the best ROI and the kind of content you should create for it.
HubSpot has a number of tools, from marketing automation to a full content management system. Their Marketing Hub allows you to create and manage social media posts, video for social, and conversations from their platform.
To get the best results from a real-time social network like Twitter, you need to be active when your followers are online.
Followerwonk analyzes your Twitter followers and tells you when your followers are most active.
You can also use it to find influencers in your niche and discover relevant people to follow.
You can also track your followers by demographics, such as age.
Olapic is a great tool to add to your visual marketing arsenal. You can use the tool to discover, curate, and schedule user-generated content across Instagram, Pinterest, and all your other social accounts.
Use it on your site, in your social ads, and in your emails to lift engagement and increase conversions.
For Instagram and Twitter, a good hashtag analyzer can go a long way. Keep up-to-speed on hashtags relevant to your industry with Keyhole.
The tool also uses machine learning to forecast whether your campaigns will hit their goals.
Finally, Keyhole tracks and monitors influencer performance. You can use it to compare influencers to determine who is most effective for your brand.
Not only does Semrush allow you to create, schedule, and track your own posts, it also lets you track and analyze your competitors’ posts, too. You can also use it to optimize your social ads.
SEMRush is also helpful for general keyword and content research in your vertical (or you can also use Ubersuggest for this).
You are already equipped with the best social media tools to research, curate, plan, schedule, monitor, and analyze your social media marketing efforts.
What about social engagement on your website? The end goal of most social campaigns is to increase your website’s engagement and traffic.
Here are some tools to power your website and drive social media interaction.
A simple way to increase the number of tweets on your blog post is by adding a link to every actionable comment. When a reader clicks on the link, it automatically adds a tweet to their Twitter account.
You can track all of your embedded links from the dashboard.
You can also analyze their performance using their analytics tool.
If you’re on WordPress, there is a simpler alternative–Better Click to Tweet plugin.
Floating share buttons can either help or hurt your engagement and conversions, according to BigCommerce. For example, sharing buttons with counters can hurt conversions if the number of shares is low, while adding share buttons to product pages can actually distract users.
The best way to find out when and where to use share buttons is through extensive testing.
If you’re on WordPress, you can start with Share Buttons by AddToAny plugin. It has the option to activate share buttons in the sidebar, as well as above and below every content piece.
You can also customize the number of social networks you want to show your visitors, from the ones below.
I recommend experimenting with two or three social media share buttons and stick to the social networks where your audience hangs out.
Do you feel like you’re losing time curating and endorsing content by other publishers?
Snip.ly can give it back to you. It’s a link shortener with a great add-on: a customized call to action for every link you share with the tool.
You can use it to drive direct traffic to your website by adding a non-intrusive, custom CTA at the bottom of each post you share.
The CTA can include customized messages, colors, images, and themes.
Besides direct traffic, you can drive app downloads, email list signups, and event registrations.
The analytics dashboard allows you to track the number of clicks and conversions.
Influencers are a trusted source of information for your customers. A recommendation from them can lift your product sales and brand visibility.
But, how can you find influencers interested in your post, service, or product?
That’s where Onalytica comes in. It finds relevant influencers for your brand based on your article link or uploaded file.
It scans an article, then generates a list of targeted influencers in under a minute. After reverse-engineering relevant influencers, you can connect and start building a relationship.
Headlines play a key role in engagement. It’s no wonder that Upworthy used to write 25 headlines for every post.
CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is a great tool to ensure headlines attract attention—and clicks.
Using it is simple:
You’ll get an overall score for your headline and a grade for the variety of words you’ve used, top keywords in your headline, and the sentiment your headline evokes
KingSumo helps brands manage giveaways on social media that can help drive emails sign ups and followers.
To create a giveaway, create a title, description, start and end date, and the number of winners. Then, post it directly to your social accounts.
You can manage and track all of your giveaways from a single dashboard.
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If a large section of your audience hangs out on Facebook, then activating Facebook Comments on your website can increase engagement and bring you closer to your social media marketing goals.
But, beware. There is a risk of comment scams that easily pass spam filters. You’ll need to stay on top of comment moderation.
Social media can become a huge distraction, even if it does help drive your business. Manually logging in to post blogs and business updates can eat up valuable time you could use to build a new product, take care of vendor orders, or handle customer concerns.
Start incorporating the above tools in your armory to automate repetitive tasks and batch your social media posts.
They’ll save you time every week. They’ll also improve your ROI from social media marketing and your bottom line.
Have I missed any of your favorite social media marketing tools? Can you share your social media productivity secrets? Please let me know in the comments below.
The post 25 Social Media Tools That Experts Use to Streamline Their Marketing appeared first on Neil Patel.
Content marketing is not just the most effective forms of online promotion that you can take part in, it’s the foundation of pretty much any other form of digital marketing. It remains stable over time, …
The post 6 Tools to Bring Your Content Marketing to the Next Level appeared first on Paper.li blog.
Online marketing is facing yet another massive evolution, where the rules of engagement are starting to change. This happens every couple of years, as customers demand something new, and companies are scrambling to adjust their …
The post 10 Online Marketing Tools to Try This Year appeared first on Paper.li blog.
The average American sees up to 10,000 ads and brand messages every single day. Sounds a little overwhelming, right? That’s because it is.
After seeing this many ads every day, viewers simply stop noticing them—meaning they aren’t engaging with them. As a result, you miss out on sales opportunities.
You need to go further to engage your target audience and convert them by personalizing the whole marketing experience through interactive marketing tools. Here’s what you need to know.
Pretend for a moment that you’re looking for new hair color. It’s tricky because you’re unsure which colors suit you, and you could use some personalized help.
Finally, a website catches your eye because there’s an interactive tool designed to help you pick a hair color. All you need to do is input some simple details, such as your skin tone and eye color, and you’ll see a list of compatible hair dyes.
The outcome? You purchase a hair dye. In other words, you just went from a potential lead to a paying customer, and it’s all thanks to that interactive website tool.
Essentially, this is precisely how interactive tools for marketing are meant to work. And this particular example isn’t imaginary—you can check out Boots to see what I mean:
If you go through the sequence, you’ll find a list of compatible colors. Then, when you click on a color, a link pops up to take you straight to the right product:
How’s that for convenience?
With just a few minutes of interaction, users get helpful, meaningful results—and you may make a sale.
That’s just one example of interactive tools in a sales context. However, you can build many interactive tools and discover at least as many ways you can use them in your marketing strategy.
Here are five common types of interactive marketing tools we can use in different ways.
This one’s similar to what we just worked through, but it’s not quite identical—we’re taking it one step further.
Embedded “quizzes” like the one we just looked at rely on customers clicking on certain answers. The algorithm then presents people with solutions matching their answers.
Conversely, virtual try-ons use augmented reality or simple image captures to let people use selfies to “try on” everything from makeup to glasses.
The benefit? Customers know whether the product suits them or not, so they’re more likely to buy. Briefly, here’s how they work:
It’s not just limited to beauty products or accessories, either. For instance, platforms like Amazon allow their users to “place” furniture around the room to see if they look good in their home. The same technology applies.
Customers sometimes find buying products like shoes online challenging because it’s hard to determine what size to get.
That’s where measurement tools come in. Let’s break down Nike’s Digital Foot Measurement Tool as an example.
It’s easy to see how this may lead to more sales and, happily, fewer returns.
Calculators are useful interactive tools for your website and can be used in more ways than one might think, including as:
Whichever sector you’re in, there’s a good chance you can use an interactive calculator to personalize the user experience.
For example, say you run a kitchen supplies website, and you want people to buy your recipe books. They’ve asked questions about how healthy the recipes are.
A nutritional calculator can help them out and, in turn, encourage people to spend more time on your website and potentially have more trust in your brand.
We’ve explored what interactive marketing tools are and how they work. There’s still a fundamental question remaining: Can these tools increase your sales?
The answer is: Yes! Here are my top seven reasons why interactive tools in your marketing strategy can increase sales:
Customer engagement is vital, but it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. Here are two reasons why:
Don’t worry, though. This time is where interactive tools have their chance to shine. 66% of marketers report an increase in engagement levels after introducing interactive content to their marketing plans.
Ultimately, increased customer engagement is a pretty effective way to generate more sales in the long-term, so it’s worth using interactive tools in your content.
Conversion is what marketing is all about, and interactive tools could help you do just that. Let me show you how it’s working for JINS, a prescription eyewear provider.
As a forward-thinking company, JINS wanted a new, innovative way to increase conversion rates and improve customer experience. Their solution came via virtual try-ons for glasses.
All someone needs to do is turn on their camera and upload a selfie to the platform. Once that’s done, the user chooses which frames they’re interested in and puts them onto the selfie.
Here’s what it looks like in action. On the left, we have the selfie, and on the right, the actual frames after the customer made their purchase:
Potential customers now have a quick and accurate way to gauge which glasses to buy! According to JINS, conversion rates have drastically improved since they added this interactive tool.
Like I said earlier, this is not just about trying on hair colors or checking out fashion accessories. This technology is about making big purchases, too.
Take Target, for example. Users upload a picture of their room and place a true-to-life copy of a furniture piece in the space. They can also download the Target app and try out the augmented reality version instead, which is a little more engaging because you can move the product around the room. Amazon does this with many of their products in their app as well.
This feature allows users to check if the furniture or other large item fits their space before purchasing it, which means they’re more likely to click “buy” and less likely to make returns.
Do you see a pattern of personalization forming? Interactive tools allow us to personalize marketing like never before. Here’s why it matters from a sales perspective:
These stats tell us two things:
First, customers crave personalization. They want to feel valued by companies.
Second, they’re more likely to become loyal customers if there’s a personal touch to your marketing efforts.
This is a no-brainer way to build brand loyalty and increase your chance of future sales.
I’ve touched on this already, but it’s worth emphasizing just how effective a lead generation strategy using interactive tools can be from a sales perspective.
Firstly, there’s an SEO angle. If you can attract more social media shares and inbound links, you should generate more traffic. Additionally, if people spend more time on your website and there’s a lower bounce rate, your search engine ranking can improve. Social shares may boost your SEO ranking by over 20%, too. (You can check who’s linking back to you with my free backlink checker.)
The upshot of interactive tools catching people’s eyes is that there could be more organic traffic and better quality leads because the people you’re attracting are already looking for your product or service.
Let’s think about this from another angle, too. The data you’re capturing from prospects as they use your tools may help you figure out what your customers want so you can improve your products and services.
Consequently, you can generate more quality leads in the long-term, all without much extra effort from a marketing perspective.
Sounds great, right?
Yes, interactive tools can help you automate your marketing efforts, and the tools do much of the work for you. The algorithms detect what the customer wants and make recommendations or offer solutions based on this information.
This can help you increase sales and make alterations as needed because you can:
Without traffic coming to your website, there’s little chance you’ll make sales. Again, interactive tools can help you out here. Here’s why.
Firstly, 47% of people use ad blockers now, so there’s a chance some potential customers won’t even see your marketing if you’ve focused efforts on those. Interactive tools help you sidestep this problem.
Secondly, 79% of successful marketers say interactive tools and content encourage people to return to their websites. It’s not just about creating new content, either—you can use the same content time and time again when you have interactive tools.
Think about it. If a customer loves the eyeglasses they purchased from you the first time around, they’re more likely to return to your online shop. There, they’ll use the same virtual try on tool they used before to check out different pairs. You didn’t have to try to impress them with new interactive tools, promotional emails, or any other marketing strategy—they liked what they used the first time and engaged with it again.
How’s that for a cost-efficient way to solidify a lasting relationship with your customer base?
Why should you build interactive tools to increase your sales? Well, as we can see, they’re not just a reliable way to generate leads and improve conversion rates, but they’re cost-effective, too.
They’re not especially challenging to deploy, either. It’s easy enough to find interactive tools you can tweak to suit your needs and embed them on your website. If you want more help with introducing interactive tools into your marketing strategy, check out my consulting services.
Have you tried interactive marketing tools yet?
The post Why You Should Build Interactive Tools to Increase Sales appeared first on Neil Patel.
The field of ppc (pay-per-click) is constantly evolving. If you use tools that automate some of the ad campaign processes, your campaigns may become more efficient and effective.
Pay-per-click automation tools allow marketers to automate some tasks by using third-party applications. These tools can save you time, improve campaign performance, and reduce wasted ad spends.
Rather than spending your time hovering over dozens of campaigns, you can focus on tasks like pinpointing areas for business growth, increasing audience engagement, and exploring new ad types that will benefit your sales funnels.
That isn’t to say automation is the key to the future, nor are we all going to be replaced by machines. Paid ad campaigns might always need humans to power them, but you can at least catch a break from constant campaign monitoring.
To start this off, let’s take a deeper dive into what PPC automation is.
PPC automation refers to the system that charges marketers every time their ad is clicked.
PPC automation allows marketers to control their Google ad campaigns through machine learning, without spending hours tediously updating scope, timing, and targeting. By automating some of the systems and steps, you can leverage third-party applications to do the hard work for you.
For example, if you want your ad to stop running on a certain day, or if you want to change the target audience before the end of the running cycle, you can use PPC automation to control these details. This means no more activating, deactivating, and adjusting your ads by hand.
What a relief.
It also means you can shift your focus back to generating leads and growing your business and let the machine do the hard work for you.
PPC automation tools are a great way to optimize ad performance and focus your time on your larger marketing goals.
PPC automation tools allow you to keep up with search engine marketing trends while also giving yourself the time to focus on optimization.
For example, when AdWords became Google Ads, many of the original tools and features were replaced. For a human, relearning these tools can be time-consuming and frustrating. For a machine, it’s instant.
Google actually suggests using PPC automation and smart ad bidding, as it saves you time and increases the performance of your ads.
Think about it this way. Let’s say you’re new to the paid ad world and want to launch your first PPC campaign.
You don’t know much about online paid advertising, but you understand how to target an audience and want a lower cost-per-click. With PPC automation, you can simply enter your campaign goals, choose your smart bidding strategies, and let the machine do the rest.
Even if Google Ads completely overhauls its system the next day, your machine will still know what to do. That means you can take the extra time to learn more about manual targeting or growing your online community.
Manual bidding can be a great asset to a campaign and offers unique ways of winning conversions and lowering ad cost rates. That being said, it only works when done correctly.
Humans often make errors that machines don’t. It’s not that we aren’t as good as they are, but we are more prone to making simple mistakes. The benefit of automated bidding and ad management is you don’t have to worry about those small, silly mistakes, like targeting the wrong audience. In contrast, leaving the work up to a machine can mean less personalization and some important details may be overlooked.
Let’s take a more in-depth look at the pros and cons of PPC automation tools.
PPC automation tools work best for long-term, ongoing campaigns. This is because to create a detailed automated system, you need to have relevant data to feed into it. If you’ve just started a new campaign with a new client and you don’t have any reference data to turn to, it might not be the best time to jump into automation.
That being said, once you get the ball rolling, PPC automation tools can save you a lot of time and money when maintaining and monitoring your PPC campaigns.
If a machine can do it just as well as we can, why not let it?
Even though it might seem like a set and forget system, there are many details that go into the initial setup of automated PPC campaigns.
For example, you still need to determine which bidding strategies fit your business or what kind of results you want to target.
Also, even an automated campaign can have hiccups. It’s essential to continue monitoring your campaigns even if you choose to use automated PPC tools. The work involved in an automated PPC campaign could be less intense than a manual campaign, but don’t let this make you become a lazy marketer just because you think the computer is handling it.
If you’d rather something else handle your PPC campaigns, my agency is accepting new PPC clients.
PPC automation is a growing marketing trend and will only get stronger as our paid ad tools evolve. Getting familiar with these tools sooner rather than later will ensure your business can automate and optimize as much as possible.
PPC automation tools range in complexity and cost. You can find ways to automate pretty much anything – it’s just a matter of which steps you want to automate and how much work you are willing to put into your campaigns.
Here are 4 of the most basic ways to use PPC automation.
Reporting is undoubtedly one of the most frustrating parts of a PPC manager’s life. Think of all the hours spent compiling data, creating spreadsheets, and importing sources to create custom reports.
Automating your reporting systems through integrations can help make this process more efficient. No more manually exporting spreadsheets and no more comparing data.
Integration refers to the different apps and platforms you may want to pull data from when preparing reports. These could be platforms such as Google Ads or Instagram Insights.
When choosing an automated reporting software, be sure to check that it offers the integrations you will need.
Here are a few easy-to-use PPC reporting tools to help make your reporting easier:
Swydo was built for PPC managers and is a simple way to automatically integrate data sets from various sources like Facebook Insights or Bing Ads.
Swydo can also help you monitor your clients’ key points of interest and translate them easily into your reports.
Swydo also lets you schedule your reports so they can be automatically sent to your team or clients, saving you an end-of-the-month scramble.
Swydo claims to help you increase client retention through their automated reporting systems. Pricing starts at $62.00 per month.
Reporting Ninja boasts more than sixteen different integrations and has a range of reporting templates.
Plus, it includes cross-platform comparisons so you can combine data from multiple platforms into a single chart or graph.
Reporting Ninja can also help you create SEO and conversion reports on top of your PPC reports. Plans start at $20.00 per month, which includes ten reports.
Report Garden can help you create client reports, monitor budgets, and add new PPC campaigns, all in one app.
Their creative visual reports will help you look great in front of your clients or company leadership.
They also have a range of interactive dashboards so your clients can see their reports in real-time.
Report Garden plans start at $250.00 per month for ten clients. Dashboards and reports are unlimited for your clients to access. Learn more about how automating reports helped this agency scale from 25 to 500 accounts with Report Garden on their blog.
Scripts are Javascript code pieces that can tell your ads to perform certain functions based on performance data that you input. Scripts can help you customize specific parts of your campaign to automate and let you pick what data points to use and when.
For example, if you want to add ad schedules for a campaign, you might use a script that looks like this.
You don’t have to be a coder to use these scripts. Google has a whole library of code scripts you can use if you’re new to this method.
Scripts are a great way to do split testing, big management, and reporting. They can be used to automate internal or external functions and save you a lot of time in PPC account maintenance.
Custom builds are certainly the most complicated area of PPC automation. These builds require some expertise, so you might need a developer to help you get started.
Custom builds are coded automations that allow you to customize almost anything in your ads. These builds will enable you to focus on unique metrics and create columns that can segment account data down to its finest points.
Google describes customization like this:
For example, to see the percentage of clicks you get from mobile devices, create a custom column that divides mobile clicks by total clicks. Or let’s say you’re a shoe retailer and enjoy a 40% profit margin for each pair of shoes you sell. To understand your total profit for each sale, ensure your conversion value column tracks revenue. Then, create a custom column that multiplies conversion value by 40% and call it ‘Estimated Profit.’
Comprehensive software platforms allow you to customize, automate, and manage your ad campaigns in a more user-friendly fashion than custom builds allow. A comprehensive software would enable you to do everything we discussed above and more from one simple platform.
Here are a few of the best PPC automation software tools out there, so you can get the most out of your paid ad strategy.
WordStream PPC Advisor is a great pick for small businesses ready to jump into PPC campaigns but don’t have large budgets or big staff rosters to support them.
WordStream offers Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter integrations as well as report building, data analytics, and landing page optimization.
WordStream PPC Advisor plans start at $264.00 per month for 12-month plans.
Optmyzr is a good choice if you’re running multiple PPC campaigns and are looking for a range of automation features.
With Optmyzr, you can create, track, and report on your PPC campaigns. You can also automate scripts and alerts directly from the platform. Optmyzr offers integrations for Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, and Bind Ads.
Plans start at $499.00 per month for the pro version.
Google Ads Editor is free for anyone using Google Ads software.
It’s a great platform for managing your Google ads to create, track, and edit your ads directly from the software. You can also make bulk changes, which is a big benefit when running multiple campaigns for a single client.
Here’s a short explainer video:
Although Google Ads Editor is great for managing your Google Ads, it doesn’t offer much integrations. If you’re running ads on multiple search engines or platforms, then you might find this software limited.
The PPC management software toolkit offered through Semrush is a great asset to campaign planning, keyword research, and competitor research. This tool lets you easily see how you rank against your competitors and how you can modify your ads to out-perform them.
It also offers a range of SEO features like the Keyword Magic Tool, which can show you search volume data alongside suggestions for stronger keywords. (You can also pull keyword data from my tool, Ubersuggest.)
Semrush offers a tiered pricing plan, which starts at $99.00 for the pro version, $199.00 for the guru version, and $399.00 and up for the business version.
Still unsure if you can make paid advertising work for your business? Watch the video below to find out how you can get the conversions you want from paid ads.
Ready to launch a high-conversion PPC campaign?
Interested in using PPC to diversify your web traffic and boost your business?
With these great PPC automation tools, you’ll be able to tap into the benefits of paid advertising and start making conversions that matter.
What are some of the ways you’ve found success with PPC automation?
The post 4 PPC Tools to Automate Your Ad Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.
Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.
The right image convinces a conference room instantly.
Sell that new client, get your boss’s approval, and rally the team behind you. Data visualization tools turn a whole mess of numbers into a crisp image that says it all.
With the right product, you can take command of overwhelming amounts of data to tell a clear and compelling story, while leaving your audience with a visual that resonates long after your presentation concludes.
In this post, I’ll give a complete overview of the best data visualization tools, and what to look for as you make your decision.
I get it. There are a million tools to help you visualize your data.
Then, when you start digging, it’s like, “Wait, do I have to know several programming languages to use this really cool product?”
Slow down. Don’t worry. You’re not going to have to go back to school to get amazing data visualizations.
Some of the high-end tools will require a little IT know-how to get off the ground, but those are really aimed at companies who can factor that into their budgets.
If that’s not what you’re looking for, no worries. There are really great data visualization tools a non-specialist can have up and running before lunch.
The key is knowing what you want your data visualization tool to do.
By understanding your local requirements, you can whittle down your options quickly by going through each of the major elements of data visualization products.
Are you looking for a nice tool that creates sleek reports, or a platform that lets you publish interactive dashboards?
Every vendor showcases data visualization examples on their site. Check these over and really reflect on your gut reaction.
If you are in search of the “wow” factor, don’t settle until you find something that will give your presentations that aesthetic edge.
This is perhaps the biggest make-it-or-break-it factor on the list: What data types and sources are supported by the data visualization tool?
No data visualization tool is good enough to justify a massive migration. You need to find something that connects with your data, wherever it lives.
Ideally, connecting data is an easy, secure, and highly-visible process.
Look for products that clearly explain how to manage and connect data sources. Official partnerships with the database products you use is a big plus.
Cruise a few reviews to see if people are finding that the connectivity is as good as advertised. Also, be sure to walk your sales team through your desired deployment to make sure it’s going to work as planned.
Not so long ago, complex data visualization required familiarity with structured query language (SQL), Python, or another language.
Today, great data visualization products like Tableau allow users to search vast databases using natural language. They provide drag-and-drop functionality that lets non-specialists drill down into the most complex questions.
That said, if you have complex data flows coming into real-time dashboards, it’s a good idea to have someone in-house who can ensure that everything is running smoothly.
Look for something that will appeal to your clients and customers, however they browse.
Does your data visualization tool support touch and multi-touch?
Good interactive visualizations take a lot of effort, and the last thing you want is for users on iOS or Android to be barred from the experience because of incompatibility.
Quality data visualization software delivers a final project that looks good on desktop, tablet, or smartphone. You can’t really budge on this unless you are committed to developing visual content for internal use.
Another thing to think about is collaboration. Will your remote and on-the-go employees be able to stay current with their team projects?
This product category is highly diversified, ranging from modest software that turns a spreadsheet column into a pie chart to interactive dashboards that interpret data flows from multiple sources in real time.
Although data visualization tools don’t break down into completely neat tiers, there are definitely recognizable categories.
I’ll start out with the lightweight tools and work up to the best business intelligence software, capable of handling the most complicated data analysis.
Simple chart tools have limited connectivity and few data visualization options. The draw is that they are often free and easy for anyone to use. Here’s an example from Google Charts, which is free forever:
For teams in constant communication, these lightweight data visualization solutions can come in handy.
If you are presenting to clients or company leadership, however, the reports generated by a simple chart might not cut it.
Infographics are really great for making compelling visual statements.
I like them because you can tie multiple charts, images, and streams of information into a cohesive presentation that can be shared on a billboard or a smartphone screen.
Plus, these are great for your content. Adding original infographics increases shares and retweets because they make your posts stand out.
Infogram is a really popular infographic tool, and looking at the examples above, you can see why I chose to review it. Your teams get a whole new dimension of artistic and creative freedom to present data in an eye-catching way.
Using Publisher or Google Docs to achieve an end result that looks this good would be tedious, if possible at all.
Generally, infographic tools come with many options for visualization out of the box.
They don’t tend to have the connectivity or analytic capabilities that come with business intelligence software, though they are far more robust than a simple chart tool.
Want people spending time on your site?
Interactive visualizations let customers and visitors play with your data in a controlled way.
Below, in the data visualization example from Datawrapper, the chart displays information based on the county the user hovers over. The county itself is also highlighted, and the average income is adjusted on a sliding scale:
Consider these products a blend or midway point between infographics much more powerful business intelligence tools.
There is nothing complex about interactive visualizations for end-users to understand, yet they allow users some degree of control over the data, which an infographic can’t support.
Business intelligence (BI) tools comb through massive amounts of raw data and turn it into actionable insights. As part of their reporting features, many BI tools come with data visualization tools designed to support the most complex analysis.
BI tools connect to a large number of disparate data sources, and usually require a higher-degree of technical skill to deploy and manage. Most often, however, end users like executives and sales managers can easily manipulate data within a dashboard once it is set up.
Customizable dashboards and robust reporting features allow different people within a company to pay attention to relevant KPIs in real time, picking up on trends and patterns that would otherwise be hidden.
Deploying and maintaining a BI tool represents a significant investment, whereas tools from the previous product categories tend to be a lot less work.
That said, there are BI options for small and mid-sized businesses that provide cross-organization connectivity and data visualization at an affordable price.
Tableau is a best-in-breed BI tool with phenomenal data visualization capabilities. It’s not the cheapest option on the market, but you get both an intuitive UI and the ability to drill down into virtually any data source.
In other words, you don’t have to make the typical sacrifices. Tableau is ultra-powerful in terms of supported visualizations, but it’s really user-friendly once you get it set up.
Many companies elect to use Tableau in order to encourage a data-driven, transparent, collaborative culture. It’s also one of the most secure products on the market, with enterprise-grade governance tools and the option for on-premises deployment.
For the most part, Tableau can do everything that any other data visualization tool can, but better. Some of the standout capabilities include:
Team pricing for Tableau is role-based, which lets large organizations economize their subscription. The roles are:
Creators have full author/edit privileges, and can connect new data sources and flows. Explorers can work with most existing assets and create their own visualizations. Viewers can interact with data and collaborate with colleagues, though they cannot author or prepare data.
Tableau Public is a free forever version of the product and the company offers a free 14-day trial that lets you test drive some of the premium features.
Infogram is an intuitive data visualization tool that delivers stunning reports, slides, dashboards and social media visuals.
First-time users are going to love the UI. Basically all of the visualization building can be accomplished via drag-and-drop.
Infogram makes it easy for teams to share and produce consistent work with customizable branded templates, role-based permissions, and file versioning..
You can see who’s editing your projects in real-time and you can add comment threads directly to an image within the infographic.
Teams can get up and running with Infogram quickly, taking advantage of its incredibly deep design capabilities::
The streamlined features don’t stop there. Tasks like embedding projects, for example, involve no more than copy/pasting embed codes into your CMS.
Infogram can be extremely beneficial for companies of any size. In addition to a free forever version, Infogram offers several pricing tiers:
With Team and Enterprise subscriptions, you get the ability to invite members, set flexible permissions, share projects, and collaborate in real-time. Connect your data, get the input you need, and start publishing great looking content before the end of the week.
Plecto is a great tool for promoting a data-driven team culture. The idea is to involve everyone in the constant flow of data by making all relevant KPIs available in a real-time, highly-visible dashboard.
Okay, plenty of other tools can do that. Gamification is where Plecto really separates itself from the crowd.
Gamification? Yes, it’s a word, and a hot one these days. With Plecto, it’s super simple to create contests using your KPIs as benchmarks. This could be sales closed, employees hired, lists built—whatever metric you need to drive, use Plecto to enable the spirit of competition.
Plecto is built for this. It’s easy to set goals and achievements that are directly tied to the numbers you care about. Increase transparency and motivation at the same time.
The platform’s capabilities work exceptionally well for sales teams, yet other departments across the organization can benefit from the unique mix of features and functionality, which include:
There are three plan options for Plecto:
Some of the important data visualization tools (like SQL integration) are not included with the Medium plan. You only need to buy licenses for users who send their data to Plecto (view-only users are free).
Datawrapper has a simple chart tool feel, yet it’s got the ability to deliver interactive and responsive charts, maps, and tables.
It’s not designed for BI so much as mass producing next-level data visualizations to capture attention on feeds and pages.
Lots of companies, like The New York Times, for example make use of Datawrapper every day to improve their content. Using striking visuals, the Times can convey complex ideas to consumers about voting data, consumer preferences, and so on.
Datawrapper has a clean, intuitive interface that makes it easy to engage with the cloud-based product’s full range of functions, which include:
You have to purchase premium plans to create custom charts and white-label projects. Custom, the first tier above free, starts at $599/month and really allows companies to reach their audience with on-brand, original visuals.
Datawrapper’s free version is excellent for internal or team use, but less attractive for public-facing visualizations.
Highcharts is a wonderful tool aimed at helping developers add interactive charts to web and mobile projects. It’s a clean, SVG-based, multi-platform, JavaScript charting library.
Upload multiple types of data and use official wrappers to work in:
This product requires some technical skills to use effectively, but the tradeoff is that it’s relatively inexpensive and works with any database or stack.
And the results are phenomenal.
Highcharts is extensible, scalable, and meant to work anywhere on every device. Some of the key features include:
For personal, non-commercial, or non-profit organizations, all of Highcharts’ products are available for free. This includes Highchart Stock, Gantt, Maps, Editor, and Mobile.
They also have deals for startups and ways for other businesses to customize the various Highcharts products to their needs. Contact sales to start putting together a pricing plan.
Tableau is the best tool for enterprise because it gives teams an edge in every aspect of data visualization.
It’s a considerable investment, though, and not every company is looking for a full-bore business intelligence solution.
If what you need is a data visualization tool to build and share memorable images, Infogram will help your teams take their game to the next level with zero graphic design or programming skills.
For companies that want to embed interactive visualizations in their online content, look no further than Datawrapper. Highcharts is another great option for embedding interactive content into your sites, though it’s not as easy for non-specialists as Datawrapper.
Coming back to Tableau for a second—yes, it’s heavy, but you can try the free version today without having to navigate a multi-step enterprise sign-up process. There aren’t any hoops to jump through, just the chance to take your data visualizations to the next level.
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